Convert array into csv

Question

How to convert an array into a CSV file?

This is my array:

stdClass Object
(

    [OrderList_RetrieveByContactResult] => stdClass Object
        (
            [OrderDetails] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [entityId] => 1025298
                    [orderId] => 10952
                    [orderName] => testing
                    [statusTypeId] => 4652
                    [countryCode] => AU
                    [orderType] => 1
                    [invoiceNumber] => 0
                    [invoiceDate] => 0001-01-01T00:00:00
                    [userID_AssignedTo] => 11711
                    [shippingAmount] => 8.95
                    [shippingTaxRate] => 0
                    [shippingAttention] => 
                    [shippingInstructions] => 
                    [shippingOptionId] => 50161
                    [discountCodeId] => 0
                    [discountRate] => 0
                    [totalOrderAmount] => 408.45
                    [directDebitTypeId] => 0
                    [directDebitDays] => 0
                    [isRecur] => 
                    [nextInvoiceDate] => 0001-01-01T00:00:00
                    [endRecurDate] => 0001-01-01T00:00:00
                    [cycleTypeID] => 1
                    [createDate] => 2010-10-08T18:40:00
                    [lastUpdateDate] => 2010-10-08T18:40:00
                    [deleted] => 
                    [products] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [Product] => stdClass Object
                                (
                                    [productId] => 674975
                                    [productCode] => 
                                    [productDescription] => 
                                    [units] => 10
                                    [unitPrice] => 39.95
                                    [unitTaxRate] => 0
                                    [totalProductPrice] => 399.5
                                    [productName] => Acne Clearing Gel
                                )

                        )

                    [addresses] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [Address] => stdClass Object
                                (
                                    [addressTypeID] => 8
                                    [addressLine1] => Cebu City
                                    [city] => Cebu
                                    [zipcode] => 6000
                                    [state] => 
                                    [countryCode] => PH
                                )

                        )

                )

        )

)

You may want to tag this question with whatever language your code is written in. That will help you get way more eyeballs on your question. :) — Tim S. Van Haren, Oct 14 '10 at 13:34
i don't think there is a way to present multi dimensionality in CSV, is there? — Hannes, Oct 14 '10 at 13:38
See also [this solution](http://stackoverflow.com/a/13474770/57091) which uses `fputcsv()` in conjunction with `ob_start(); $df = fopen("php://output", 'w'); fclose($df); return ob_get_clean();`. — robsch, Oct 08 '15 at 06:15

score 79 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 19 '16 at 22:10

I'm using the following function for that; it's an adaptation from one of the man entries in the fputscsv comments. And you'll probably want to flatten that array; not sure what happens if you pass in a multi-dimensional one.

/**
  * Formats a line (passed as a fields  array) as CSV and returns the CSV as a string.
  * Adapted from http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.fputcsv.php#87120
  */
function arrayToCsv( array &$fields, $delimiter = ';', $enclosure = '"', $encloseAll = false, $nullToMysqlNull = false ) {
    $delimiter_esc = preg_quote($delimiter, '/');
    $enclosure_esc = preg_quote($enclosure, '/');

    $output = array();
    foreach ( $fields as $field ) {
        if ($field === null && $nullToMysqlNull) {
            $output[] = 'NULL';
            continue;
        }

        // Enclose fields containing $delimiter, $enclosure or whitespace
        if ( $encloseAll || preg_match( "/(?:${delimiter_esc}|${enclosure_esc}|\s)/", $field ) ) {
            $output[] = $enclosure . str_replace($enclosure, $enclosure . $enclosure, $field) . $enclosure;
        }
        else {
            $output[] = $field;
        }
    }

    return implode( $delimiter, $output );
}

Hi, this works for me. But i have a question, how do i make it to create a new line after 1 row? I added a counter in my for loop and if its the end of the first index, I append a new line like this $output[$i] .= "\r\n"; it creates a new line but it added one new cell in the next rows too. — user1149244, Jul 03 '13 at 07:43
There is an edge case where if the last value in your `$fields` array is an empty string, it is discarded. So if your array is 3 elements long and the last element is is an empty string, you will get values before the empty string separated by 2 delimiters instead of the 3 that is required to indicate that the last value is empty. — etherealite, Sep 21 '17 at 06:41

kingjeffrey · Answer 2 · 2013-09-20T23:04:17.450

My solution requires the array be formatted differently than provided in the question:

<?
    $data = array(
        array( 'row_1_col_1', 'row_1_col_2', 'row_1_col_3' ),
        array( 'row_2_col_1', 'row_2_col_2', 'row_2_col_3' ),
        array( 'row_3_col_1', 'row_3_col_2', 'row_3_col_3' ),
    );
?>

We define our function:

<?
    function outputCSV($data) {
        $outputBuffer = fopen("php://output", 'w');
        foreach($data as $val) {
            fputcsv($outputBuffer, $val);
        }
        fclose($outputBuffer);
    }
?>

Then we output our data as a CSV:

<?
    $filename = "example";

    header("Content-type: text/csv");
    header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename={$filename}.csv");
    header("Pragma: no-cache");
    header("Expires: 0");

    outputCSV($data);
?>

I have used this with several projects, and it works well. I should note that the outputCSV code is more clever than I am, so I am sure I am not the original author. Unfortunately I have lost track of where I got it, so I can't give the credit to whom it is due.

score 15 · Answer 3 · answered May 12 '13 at 14:01

A slight adaptation to the solution above by kingjeffrey for when you want to create and echo the CSV within a template (Ie - most frameworks will have output buffering enabled and you are required to set headers etc in controllers.)

// Create Some data
<?php
    $data = array(
        array( 'row_1_col_1', 'row_1_col_2', 'row_1_col_3' ),
        array( 'row_2_col_1', 'row_2_col_2', 'row_2_col_3' ),
        array( 'row_3_col_1', 'row_3_col_2', 'row_3_col_3' ),
    );


// Create a stream opening it with read / write mode
$stream = fopen('data://text/plain,' . "", 'w+');

// Iterate over the data, writting each line to the text stream
foreach ($data as $val) {
    fputcsv($stream, $val);
}

// Rewind the stream
rewind($stream);

// You can now echo it's content
echo stream_get_contents($stream);

// Close the stream 
fclose($stream);

Credit to Kingjeffrey above and also to this blog post where I found the information about creating text streams.

This solution is useful where permissions for file creation is not allowed — DKG, Jun 25 '13 at 10:07

Paulraj · Answer 4 · 2014-10-09T05:56:46.870

14

function array_2_csv($array) {
    $csv = array();
    foreach ($array as $item) {
        if (is_array($item)) {
            $csv[] = array_2_csv($item);
        } else {
            $csv[] = $item;
        }
    }
    return implode(',', $csv);
} 

$csv_data = array_2_csv($array);

echo "<pre>";
print_r($csv_data);
echo '</pre>'   ;

edited Oct 09 '14 at 05:56

answered Oct 14 '10 at 13:38

Paulraj

3,373
3
36
40

Hi Paulrajj, Thank you very much. you really help my problem. your awesome dude! :D – rayss Oct 14 '10 at 15:47

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 14 '19 at 06:28

The accepted answer from Paul is great. I've made a small extension to this which is very useful if you have an multidimensional array like this (which is quite common):

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [a] => "a"
            [b] => "b"
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [a] => "a2"
            [b] => "b2"
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [a] => "a3"
            [b] => "b3"
        )

    [3] => Array
        (
            [a] => "a4"
            [b] => "b4"
        )

    [4] => Array
        (
            [a] => "a5"
            [b] => "b5"
        )

)

So I just took Paul's function from above:

/**
  * Formats a line (passed as a fields  array) as CSV and returns the CSV as a string.
  * Adapted from http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.fputcsv.php#87120
  */
function arrayToCsv( array &$fields, $delimiter = ';', $enclosure = '"', $encloseAll = false, $nullToMysqlNull = false ) {
    $delimiter_esc = preg_quote($delimiter, '/');
    $enclosure_esc = preg_quote($enclosure, '/');

    $output = array();
    foreach ( $fields as $field ) {
        if ($field === null && $nullToMysqlNull) {
            $output[] = 'NULL';
            continue;
        }

        // Enclose fields containing $delimiter, $enclosure or whitespace
        if ( $encloseAll || preg_match( "/(?:${delimiter_esc}|${enclosure_esc}|\s)/", $field ) ) {
            $output[] = $enclosure . str_replace($enclosure, $enclosure . $enclosure, $field) . $enclosure;
        }
        else {
            $output[] = $field;
        }
    }

    return implode( $delimiter, $output );
}

And added this:

function a2c($array, $glue = "\n")
{
    $ret = [];
    foreach ($array as $item) {
        $ret[] = arrayToCsv($item);
    }
    return implode($glue, $ret);
}

So you can just call:

$csv = a2c($array);

If you want a special line ending you can use the optional parameter "glue" for this.

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 16 '20 at 10:57

Add some improvements based on accepted answer.

PHP 7.0 Strict typing
PHP 7.0 Type declaration and Return type declaration
Enclosure \r, \n, \t
Don't enclosure empty string even $encloseAll is TRUE

/**
  * Formats a line (passed as a fields array) as CSV and returns the CSV as a string.
  * Adapted from https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fputcsv.php#87120
  */
function arrayToCsv(array $fields, string $delimiter = ';', string $enclosure = '"', bool $encloseAll = false, bool $nullToMysqlNull = false): string {

    $delimiter_esc = preg_quote($delimiter, '/');
    $enclosure_esc = preg_quote($enclosure, '/');

    $output = [];
    foreach ($fields as $field) {
        if ($field === null && $nullToMysqlNull) {
            $output[] = 'NULL';
            continue;
        }
        // Enclose fields containing $delimiter, $enclosure or whitespace, newline
        $field = strval($field);
        if (strlen($field) && ($encloseAll || preg_match("/(?:${delimiter_esc}|${enclosure_esc}|\s|\r|\n|\t)/", $field))) {
            $output[] = $enclosure . str_replace($enclosure, $enclosure . $enclosure, $field) . $enclosure;
        } else {
            $output[] = $field;
        }
    }

    return implode($delimiter, $output);

}

score -2 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 17 '15 at 21:44

Well maybe a little late after 4 years haha... but I was looking for solution to do OBJECT to CSV, however most solutions here is actually for ARRAY to CSV...

After some tinkering, here is my solution to convert object into CSV, I think is pretty neat. Hope this would help someone else.

$resp = array();
foreach ($entries as $entry) {
    $row = array();
    foreach ($entry as $key => $value) {
        array_push($row, $value);
    }
    array_push($resp, implode(',', $row));
}
echo implode(PHP_EOL, $resp);

Note that for the $key => $value to work, your object's attributes must be public, the private ones will not get fetched.

The end result is that you get something like this:

blah,blah,blah
blah,blah,blah

Convert array into csv

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